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Another Meeting with Lovely Wake Forest Police and More Peace!

Note to self and world: Examining the details of any small, beautiful thing is highly suspicious and might earn you a visit from law enforcement.

Waiting in front of the Wake Forest campus for my friends to pick me up to go serve lunch to homeless people downtown, I thought I might as well spend the time admiring some of Nature’s Beauty.

There were no oranges outside the gates of WFU so I thought I’d be safe from being reported to the police, but apparently admiring the leaves on a hedge or a spiderweb is also intensely suspicious behavior. Within 10 minute of reveling in the beauty of the hedge and magnificence of various spiderwebs strewn across the leaves, cops showed up next to me.

1. The first thing the policeman said: “Do I recognize you?”

2. “You definitely might. I was banned from campus just the other day.”

3. “Well you know you’re on campus right now, right?”

4. “Oh, sorry about that. I wasn’t sure if the campus property extended beyond the entrance or not. Well, you can go ahead and arrest me if you want to, but I’m just waiting for my friend to pick me up so we can go serve lunch to homeless people downtown. He’ll be here in just a minute if you’d like to talk with him.”

5. He asks to search my bag. What did he find? Ahh!!! Oh my gosh, this man is carrying books with him.

6. As he searches my belongings, my friend pulls up. “Would you like to speak with him or should I just tell him to go on without me?”

7. “No, you can tell him to wait. Just give me and my partner a minute.” One minute later…”Okay. You can go. Just know that next time you might not be so lucky, and this technically is campus property so you really shouldn’t be here.”

8. “Thank you so much! Have a great day.”

9. Hooray for noble intentions overcoming bureaucracy!

Peace, baby, Peace!

Being banned from campus has allowed me ample time for reflection and thoughts regarding how to bring a greater realization of inner-peace to people and thus greater Peace to the World. I’ve also been spending a lot more time at the Samaritan Inn Ministries which does tremendous work with helping homeless people find employment and overcome addiction. In fact, they are actually in the process of fundraising for a new facility, so if you’d like to donate some cash-money to them, please do. If you’d like learn more about them, you can visit them here: http://www.samaritanforsyth.org/

As far World Peace goes, though, the number one most important thing about it…

It starts with you! If we want World Peace, we must first find peace within ourselves. The greater Peace we experience, then the greater Peace we can bring to the world.

One of my absolute favorite parts about pursuing World Peace is that nearly everyone agrees with it to some degree. As far as the means to World Peace go, that is up for debate, but as MLK said, “We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.” Peace is Every Step!

At our core, I believe we all know what Peace is, and we all know some ways that we can bring greater Peace to our lives. If you’d like some ideas on the matter, Steve Pavlina has a great post about how we can raise our consciousness and thus experience more Peace:

For me, I think one of the simplest steps we can all make to bring about greater Peace in our own lives and in the world is to switch to a vegetarian diet. Slaughterhouses are a source of great injustice in the world, not just for the animals, but also the people working in them who are paid to kill the animals. Apparently, killing animals doesn’t align with the conscience of too many people, and many slaughterhouse workers suffer from depression and other mental disorders, possibly from a result of participating in animal genocide on a daily basis. Of course, they do it to pay the bills, and our society is currently structured to reward someone who is willing to kill animals. However, if we decide to stop participating in the system that pays people to kill animals by not buying dead animals, then we can effectively lower the amount of animals killed, lower the amount of people who have to kill the animals, and save both animal and human life! Animal by animal and person by person, we absolutely make a difference.

A vegetarian diet is a win / win / win / win / win across all boards. It is healthier, leads to greater levels of energy, clearer thinking, saves money, and perhaps most importantly, brings more Peace to the world by protecting both human and animal life. But hey – even if you’re doing it from a selfish standpoint – do it to optimize your energy! Who wouldn’t want to experience greater energy? Of course, don’t take my word for it – try it yourself!

Experience is the mother of all wisdom. We can really only know something through personal experience. I’ve experienced the benefits of a vegetarian and vegan diet and they are pretty wonderful – but really – you can’t trust me! However, what you can do yourself a favor, venture outside of your comfort zone just a little bit, and try a vegetarian or vegan diet for just a day, a week, or a month. 30 days is really the way to do it, as Steve Pavlina can also share with you more about. He is a wise guy, that Steve Pavlina.

And – not to worry – even if you do eat dead animals and don’t feel like you are currently at a place in your life where you are willing to sacrifice your taste buds for greater health and Peace in the world, there are plenty of other things we can all do to bring about greater Peace. Visiting humane.net or freerice.com and donating a few clicks daily is a good way to raise awareness for what we can all do on an individual level to combat some of the problems of the world.

Really though, perhaps the best way to bring about greater Peace in your own life and in the world is to simply smile. So – here’s to smiling!

Meditating is also totally cool and a great joy. Once again, though, don’t take my word for it. 🙂

And, here’s to you, whoever you are – you are most definitely a beautiful spirit and full of light.